Bøger af Thomas Larson

Identity studies is engulfed in debate. Scholars, artists, and activists alike are continually brought together and separated from each other through their individual and group identities. Although we may identify with groups and subgroups, we all have individual experiences which are unlike any other person. We can relate to one another, yet not fully. To identify completely with any one person or group would imply we are post-human, clone animations. However, when we explore identities, we can find common ground. Additionally, we can find empathy more easily if we understand ourselves. It is comforting to think others've had paths similar to ours, maybe even running parallel or intersecting. Our identities transform over time, transitioning, occupying a liminal area. When we write about our experiences, once again the individual and the group intersect. We may say "I've also felt that," or "I'd like to understand that more." Identity studies implies we are acknowledging some people's stories are left out. As we search for them, or, as with this space, provide places for their exhibition, we can uncover oppression and pain, along with revealing ways for triumph and joyfulness. Identity studies should exist to show us these intersections, create more opportunities to empathize with others, and maintain an understanding of the nuances of each individual. But let's not stop at "individuality." Studying identity, others and our own, should move us toward solidarity.

The Gospel According to Matthew, Margo, and Lance is the second book in The Event Trilogy about the survival of a small group of people who huddled together after a cosmic plague-infected the planet and turned the masses into blood craving zombies. It is the journals of some of those survivors and what they experienced. It is about them coming to grips with the loss of much of the simple first world things that we take for granted in our society and moving to a simple time, yet a more complicated time. They have moved from going to the local supermarket to learning to grow, hunt and preserve food. Finding ways to use what has been left behind to get through the winter, and begin the process of rebuilding a piece of humanity.

Today, the surprisingly elastic form of the memoir embraces subjects that include dying, illness, loss, relationships, and self-awareness. Writing to reveal the inner self-the pilgrimage into one's spiritual and/or religious nature-is a primary calling. Contemporary memoirists are exploring this field with innovative storytelling, rigorous craft, and new styles of confessional authorship. Now, Thomas Larson brings his expertise as a critic, reader, and teacher to the boldly evolving and improvisatory world of spiritual literature.In his book-length essay Spirituality and the Writer, Larson surveys the literary insights of authors old and new who have shaped religious autobiography and spiritual memoir-from Augustine to Thomas Merton, from Peter Matthiessen to Cheryl Strayed. He holds them to an exacting standard: they must render transcendent experience in the writing itself. Only when the writer's craft prevails can the fleeting and profound personal truths of the spirit be captured. Like its predecessor, Larson's The Memoir and the Memoirist, Spirituality and the Writer will find a home in writing classrooms and book groups, and be a resource for students, teachers, and writers who seek guidance with exploring their spiritual lives.

We all know someone who has suffered a heart attack. But how often do we learn the intimate, potentially life-saving details that accompany coronary disease? In The Sanctuary of Illness, Thomas Larson gives a powerful and personal inside tour of what happens when our arteries fail. He chronicles the three heart attacks in five years that he survived, and the emergency surgeries that saved his life each time. Slowly waking up to the genetic legacy and dangerous diet that pushed him to the brink, he reveals a path to healing that he and his partner, Suzanna, discovered together. Told with urgency and sensitivity, The Sanctuary of Illness is a subtle reminder that heart disease seldom affects just one heart.

The memoir is the most popular and expressive literary form of our time. Writers embrace the memoir and readers devour it, propelling many memoirs by relative unknowns to the top of the best-seller list. Writing programs challenge authors to disclose themselves in personal narrative.